On 2/21/13 9:38 PM, Eisboch wrote:


"Wayne B" wrote in message
...

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:36:15 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

That's the only problem with propane. You really can't shop for
competitive pricing ... at least not in my state .... because only the
supplier who installed the tanks can fill them.

===

Is that state law? Sounds like restraint of trade to me. Someone
should challenge it in court.

==========================

I really don't know if it's a state law or just a policy of the propane
suppliers. I am sure the concern is liability.

To the best of my knowledge the same is (or was) true in Florida. We
had a propane powered spa heater in one of the houses down there and
when I called a supplier to fill it he told me he couldn't unless he
installed a tank provided by him. I've never investigated buying our
own tanks as Harry mentioned but again, we really don't use enough
propane up here to make it an issue.

I had a friend who lived on Long Island who installed a propane heater
for his pool and then regretted it as he watched his tank being filled
weekly.
When we put our pool in here in MA, I went for an electric heater. It's
big (150,000 BTU heat pump) but we only use it to initially get the
water temp up in the spring and then later in the fall to extend the
pool use a bit. Most of the time it is off.

When they were putting the pool in, the electrical contractor was trying
to sell us a whole house, propane powered generator. He said we could
tie it into the 100 gallon tank we have for the garage heater. He ran
all the wiring for it but, after thinking about it, I elected to hold
off on it. That was 7 years ago. The number of times we have been
without power for any extended period of time in the last 7 years just
doesn't justify the cost of a huge generator like that, plus it would
also go through propane fast.

The longest period we've gone without power was for 3 days and that was
two weeks ago during the "blizzard". Even if we had the big generator,
we would not have been able to get more propane for it if it ran low
because nobody could drive anywhere due to the fallen trees and power
lines. We got by fine using the little Honda EU2000i. I ran power
to a refrigerator, a couple of lights and to the furnace. The little
generator worked great and It used a total of about 6 gallons of
gasoline over the 3 day period. The furnace, circulating pump and a
couple of booster fans only draws 5.6 amps according to my clamp-on
ammeter. A refrigerator only draws 2 amps or less in normal operation
(compressor only). The little Honda maxes out at about 13.4 amps
(continuous duty and a peak of 16.7 amps for starting currents, etc.)
so it had no problem running a refrigerator and a couple of those new
type lights. The only time it was really loaded was when the
refrigerator went into a defrost cycle when the refrig draws about 6
amps, but that only happens once a day. If I noticed it, I just
unplugged the furnace for that period of time. Most of the time it ran
at the low RPM (Eco mode) level. It would run for 9 hours on a
fill-up of a gallon of gas.

I also just found out that you can purchase a special fuel cap for it
that allows you to connect it to an auxiliary fuel tank (looks like a
fuel tank for a small outboard motor). That would give you a six
gallon capacity and it could run continuously for days.


We're still "anticipating" the first serious power outage down here
since the installation of our backup generator. We've had two short-term
outages of a couple of minutes each, and the generator operated
nominally each time.

When we switched from one propane dealer to another, the new dealer sent
his plumber out to check the valves and look over what little of the
tank is out of the ground. Apparently, all was ok.

Unfortunately, "life as we know it" ceases with a power outage, since
we're on a well. We have bottled water for drinking, but without water
to wash up, flush toilets, et cetera, you might as well mosey on over to
a motel if you are facing an outage that might run more than two days.

Several of our neighbors got a "deal" on 10,000 watt generators on
wheels and jury-rigged hookups to their circuit breaker boxes, and these
work ok but the hookups look scary to me. Also, apparently they cannot
run their heat pumps off these units because of the start-up power
requirements. This is way over my non-electrician pay grade.